Le regole del gioco narrativo di Umberto Eco: La lettura dei romanzi di Eco alla luce di Sei passeggiate nei boschi narrativi

Questo articolo è una lettura dei sette romanzi di Umberto Eco da Il nome della rosa (1980) al Numero zero (2015) alla luce delle sei conferenze che ha tenuto alla Harvard University (1992–1993), pubblicate col titolo Sei passeggiate nei boschi narrativi. È un tentativo di trovare la chiave di lettura dei suoi romanzi e le regole del gioco narrativo che nella veste dell’“autore modello” ci pone. Eco, non solo con i suoi romanzi, ma anche con le sue opere di saggistica ci mette in gioco, ci trascina in un labirinto e ci procura dei segnali per guidarci. Eco ha tenuto sei conferenze e ha scritto sette romanzi; ogni conferenza parla di un punto cardine della narrazione e ogni romanzo è una dimostrazione di quel punto. Questo articolo è una rilettura delle sue opere narrative considerando i sei punti cardinali della narrazione da lui definiti: l’autore e il lettore modello, l’intreccio, l’indugio, la fiducia tra l’autore e il lettore, l’enciclopedia richiesta dal testo e la finzione narrativa. Come sostiene Eco, soltanto scoprendo le regole del gioco del labirinto e il sistema creato dal suo autore, ovvero la sua strategia, possiamo scoprire il senso vero di un’opera letteraria.

Far from the homeland: Dishonour and redemption in Mario Monicelli's The Girl with the Gun

The journey undertaken by the protagonist Assunta Patanè in Mario Monicelli's film The Girl with the Gun is far more than a mere spatial displacement fired by a desire for revenge, but it gradually takes the form of an itinerary of an individualistic and cultural nature that is eventually to overturn the stereotypes of Assunta's native Sicilian community, thus enabling her to embrace modernity and, in particular, emancipation, both of which are totally alien to her at the opening of the film. The metamorphosis of the protagonist passes through various phases that will lead her towards self-awareness and self-determination, following her arrival in Great Britain with the intent to take revenge on Vincenzo, the man responsible for her dishonour. The polyhedral use of language (Sicilian dialect, Standard Italian and English), the impact of a new society and culture, not to mention the series of relations, above all with male characters so different from each other (Vincenzo, John, Frank and Doctor Osborne), will mark Assunta's gradual path towards maturity. In an atmosphere initially overhung with tragedy but gradually transformed through comedy and humour, the Sicilian woman will succeed in freeing herself from the prejudices and customs of an archaic world, so as to affirm her presence and personal identity, now liberated from the simplistic male–female binary and from the respective roles decreed since antiquity.

Forza emozionale? National discourse and La Battaglia di Legnano

This article will suggest how the audience interpreted the music and messages held within Verdi's La Battaglia di Legnano and suggest how far the sentiment within the opera was understood, in turn asking how effective a canone of nationalist images within culture would have been. The use of musical psychological and philosophical studies – such as those by Peter Kivy and Anthony Storr, among others – will offer an insight into the effect of music on the mind, and suggest how music affects the audience.

Italian Canadian italophone fiction: The works of Nino Famà

Within the Italian Canadian literary corpus, fiction written in Italian has occupied a special spot. Because Italian Canadian authors have written primarily in English or, secondarily, in French, works by italophone writers have had an even more meagre circulation than that, already itself quite reduced, enjoyed by their anglophone or francophone counterparts. Yet, despite this limitation or perhaps also because of it, Italian Canadian italophone is nonetheless literature which does raise important issues. Focusing on the short stories and novels of Nino Famà, this article traces those issues in order to show not only how they summarize the main thematic and stylistic gist of Italian Canadian italophone fiction but also, most importantly, how they relate to some of the concerns which have always been associated with the Western modern novel.

“accipiendo vel compilando ab aliis”: De vulgari eloquentia 1.1. Reading Dante with Dante: A contribution to Dante’s theory of language

This article analyzes Dante’s theory of language and considers at first a few fragments of Dante’s Latin treatise on the vernacular, reading them in light of their ancient-medieval contexts. This reading allows part-modification of the critical discourse about Dante’s theory of language. The article argues that Dante’s discussion did not start in the De vulgari eloquentia, as is commonly assumed, but was at first introduced in the Vita nuova. Recent studies show that the theme of laude in the Vita nuova includes a linguistic theory and a discourse on the deep structures of language. Focussing on specific words, considering them in light of the ancient-medieval background, the article organizes a transverse reading that considers layers of Dante’s discourse on language from the Vita nuova to the Commedia not yet explored and evaluated.

Dante’s claims in and around Paradiso 25

The extraordinary claims that Dante makes in cantos 24–26 of Paradiso with regard to both his theoretical knowledge and his actual ‘possession’ of the three theological virtues – Faith, Hope and Charity – do not seem to be entirely consistent with the story of a character who, only a few days earlier, was struggling in the dark forest and about to succumb to intellectual bewilderment and moral straying. Why else was that character so close to spiritual death if not because he lacked those virtues which he now claims to know so profoundly and hold in supreme measure? This paper argues first, that Dante here transcends any distinction that may operate elsewhere in the poem between Dante as character, narrator and author; second, that his claims make sense in the context of his circumstances at the time when he composed cantos 24–26 of Paradiso, i.e. on or just before 1320, twenty years after the fictional date of his journey to the Otherworld; and third, that he is likely to have made such claims in order to preempt any attack on himself, his poem and his mission as theologian, prophet and reformer of the Church.

“The lantern of the world rises to mortals by varied paths”: Paul Laffoley (1935–2015) and Dante

American artist and architect Paul Laffoley (1935–2015) had a life-long fascination with Dante. Not only did he refer to Dante and the Commedia throughout his writings and paintings, but he created a large-scale triptych illustrating the poem, as well as sketched out plans for a full-immersion Dante study center on a planetoid orbiting the Sun, complete with a to-scale replica of the medieval Earth, Mount Purgatory, the material heavens, and the Empyrean through which a “Dante Candidate” could re-enact the Pilgrim’s journey. Laffoley’s work is often placed by art critics within the visionary tradition and Laffoley himself embraced that label, even as he deconstructed the term in his writing. Among the many visionary artists, poets, and philosophers Laffoley studied, Dante was central. He was, for Laffoley, a model seeker of knowledge, a seer beyond the illusions of everyday life. The essay that follows offers a brief biography of Laffoley and his works; an overview of his two main Dante projects ( The Divine Comedy triptych [1972–1975] and The Dantesphere [1978]); and initial considerations on how Dante’s works and thought fit into Laffoley’s larger epistemological project.

Four great magnalia of government. La riforma istituzionale di Henry Neville: un machiavelliano inglese alla corte di Cosimo III de’ Medici

The tumultuous phase running from the beheading of Charles I to the Glorious Revolution is the time frame in which England goes through the crucial phases that will put an end to royal absolutism. One of the most authoritative intellectual figures of that founding historical moment of modern constitutionalism is Henry Neville, author of political and satirical pamphlets who, taking up the lesson of the ancients with the experience of “modern things”, published in 1680 the Plato Redivivus, a work that will consecrate him as a Republican political thinker. The treaty, written and published in the context of the Exclusion crisis, exhort Charles II to reduce his powers. The disease suffered by the State, the causes of which Neville investigates by seeking remedies, arose precisely from the extension of the king's power and his arbitrariness.